Evelyn Erie accompanied my father to the grave as one of the chief mourners, and at my entreaty Mrs. Austin laid my little sister on the bed by my side, and I was soothed and strengthened by the sight of her baby loveliness as nothing else could have soothed and strengthened me.

Then, solemnly and in my own heart, I renewed the promise I had made the dead, and as far as in me lay have I kept it, Mabel, through thy life and mine!

I roused from an uneasy sleep an hour later, to find George Gaston at my side.

“I have brought you this, Miriam,” he said, “because I thought it might help you to bear up.  It is a little book my mother loved; perhaps you can read it and understand it when you are older even if you cannot now.  See, there is a cross on the back, and such a pretty picture of Jesus in the front.  It is for you to keep forever, Miriam.  It is called Keble’s ‘Christian Year.’”

“Thank you, George,” and I kissed him, murmuring, “But I do not think I shall ever read any more,” tearfully.

He, too, begged to see the baby for all recompense—­his darling as well as mine thenceforth; and I recall to this hour the lovely face of the boy, with all his clustering, nut-brown curls damp with the clammy perspiration incident to his debility, bending above the tiny infant as it lay in sweet repose, with words of pity and tenderness, and tearful, steadfast eyes that seemed filled with almost angelic solicitude and solemn blessing.

Two guardians of ten years old then clasped hands above its downy head, and in childish earnestness vowed to one another to protect, to cherish, to defend it as long as life was spared to either.  Hannibal was not older than we were when he swore his famous oath at Carthage, kneeling at the feet of Hamilcar before the altar, to hate the Romans.  How was our oath of love less solemn or impressive than his of hatred?—­pledged as it was, too, in the presence of an angel too lately freed from earth’s bondage not to hover still around her prison-house and above the sleeping cherub she left so lately!

Such resolutions, however carried out, react on the character that conceives them.  I felt from that time strengthened, uplifted, calmed, as I had never felt before.  I learned the precious secret of patience in watching over that baby head, and for its sake grew forbearing to all around; toward Evelyn, even, whose taunts were so hard to bear, so unendurable on occasions.

“There is a great change in Miriam,” she said one day to Norman Stanbury.  “I believe she is getting religion, or perhaps she and George Gaston are training themselves to go forth as married missionaries, after a while, to the heathen.  They are studying parental responsibility already, one at the head and the other at the foot of the baby’s cradle-carriage, but I am afraid it will be but a lame concern, after all.”

We both heard this cruel speech and the laugh that succeeded it, in passing by, as it was intended we should do, probably—­heard it in silence, and perhaps it may be said in dignity, not even a remark being interchanged between us concerning it; but I saw George Gaston flush to the roots of his hair.